


Believe In Me

by flipflop_diva



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:57:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The whole world thinks she's crazy. But he knows the truth. The story of Jenny Mills and August Corbin. Sleepy Hollow pre-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Believe In Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzy/gifts).



> tzy, I loved your prompts. I'm not sure if I did them justice, but I hope you enjoy this anyway. Happy holidays!

_I don’t believe you._

It was the image that haunted not only her dreams but her every waking thought, the image that stole her childhood and her adolescence and turned her life into a nightmare she would never be able to escape from.

She wasn’t crazy. She knew she wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t crazy, was she?

No, she wasn’t. She couldn’t be.

It had been real. It had been as real as the trees in the forest, as real as her sister’s trembling hand in hers, as real as the ground beneath their feet.

She couldn’t explain it, she couldn’t understand it, she didn’t know what it meant, but it was real. She knew it was real.

Wasn’t it?

_I don’t believe you._

“You’re lying! Tell me what you really saw!” He wore a police officer’s uniform, but he wasn’t protecting her. He hovered over her, yelling, screaming, his face turning red like the setting sun. He didn’t listen to what she said, he didn’t try to understand what she was telling him. Just dismissed her, like everyone always did.

 _I don’t believe you,_ was what his words really meant.

“I didn’t see anything!” The one person in the world she had always counted on to be there for her, to stand up for her, now turning her back on her, literally, as she was dragged from the room, fighting and crying. The one person who had been there too, now denying everything, now too afraid to speak up, even if it meant separation, even if it meant never being together again.

 _I don’t believe you,_ was what her silence could very well have implied.

“Stop making up stories.” A cruel woman who somehow had been allowed to raise children. She had never listened, never cared and now she waved her hand dismissively as belongings were stuffed in bags and another home she never considered a home was left far, far behind.

 _No one believes you,_ was what she really should have said.

“These pills will make it better.” A woman in a white nurse’s outfit with a hand outstretched but who had no desire to really help. Far too bitter, far too cynical, she had seen too much, heard too much, spent too much time with those who lived in other worlds to even try to care, to even try to understand. It was easier to prescribe medicine, hand over pills, keep them quiet, keep them weak, keep them locked up. 

_No one believes you anyway,_ was her unspoken message.

No one believes you.

No one believes you.

No one believes you.

Over and over, person after person, again and again. A mantra in her head so loud and so clear she began to think maybe she was crazy after all, maybe it all had been a dream, a hallucination, a story she had made up once upon a time.

No one believes you.

No one believes you.

No one believes you.

_I believe you._

The first visitor she’d ever had who didn’t come with a pad of paper or more pills. He sat across a small table and waited patiently while she eyed him skeptically, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, waiting for the twist, waiting for the blow, waiting to run.

But the eyes were kind, the palm outstretched, seemingly inviting, seemingly sincere.

_I believe you._

The unwitting tears in her eyes, the weight on her shoulders lifting slightly, the small realization that maybe she wasn’t crazy after all.

“I know your sister.”

And there came the blow, there came the twist. The walls built back up faster than they had started to crumble, her guard back on full alert. But no more words came. Neither hers nor his. Until they finally led her away.

_I believe you._

He kept coming back, kept smiling tenderly at her, kept offering her his hand, kept repeating the words that warmed her soul, that gave her hope, even if she didn’t want them to.

Until finally she spoke and, almost unwittingly, answered in kind. 

“I believe you, too.”

Just a whisper, a hint of voice, so soft she could pretend it had never been spoken at all. But he took the words in, smiled at her, turned his hand over and grasped her wrist. 

Not hard. Not a policeman’s brutal hold or a foster mom’s painful grasp or a doctor’s directional tug, but a father’s reassuring touch. Or what she imagined that must feel like. 

A smile on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes. 

He didn’t answer her, didn’t say a word, just held her hand and then stood and left, but this time she knew he would be back, this time she waited for him to return, almost looking forward to it, almost what you’d call excited.

_I believe you._

He did come back. As she knew he would. Told her stories, in a low, stealthy whisper like they were sharing the world’s darkest secrets. 

Maybe they were.

Impossible tales of impossible creatures connected through time and more powerful than all humans put together. Tales of good and tales of evil and tales of centuries of struggles that normally go unnoticed.

Bedtime stories that were not for children, that were not for the weak of heart. 

But he told them to her and his eyes were sincere and his touch was gentle and his eyes were searching. She kept her thoughts to herself and just listened, just waited, still wondering if the other shoe would drop, but doctors came and people looked over and he’d hold a finger to his mouth in a gesture to her and kept his silence.

Until the day she knew she was ready. And she told him her story, about the image that haunted not only her dreams but her every waking thought, about the image that stole her childhood and her adolescence and turned her life into a nightmare she didn’t think she’d ever be able to escape from.

And he listened without judging, the same sympathetic eyes, the same tender handhold.

Until she was done and life-altering words slipped out of his mouth.

“I know what that was. I want you to help me.”

And she didn’t hesitate, not even for a second, not this time.

“I want to help you, too.”

_I believe you._


End file.
